UN Kalam GlobalSat: Satellite named in memory of APJ Adbul Kalam

A proposal has been made to name a global satellite after the late former President Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam who died on 27 July 2015. The step is being taken to pay tribute to the Missile Man of India. According to reports, a global satellite called as GlobalSat for DRR (a satellite for observation of Earth and Disaster Risk Reduction) will be renamed as UN Kalam GlobalSat in the memory of the world-renowned rocket scientist.

The decision to rename the satellite after the late Missile Mans of India was made by Milind Pimprikar, Chairman of CANEUS (CANada-Europe-US-Asia) headquartered in Montreal, Canada. According to Pimprikar, this step of renaming the satellite the will be a tribute to the great man who had contributed a lot in the field science and space explorations. He further added that this will also symbolize his World Space Vision-2050 in which nations will join their hands in order to find solution to major problems of mankind including natural disasters, energy, health-care, education, water and weather related problems.

While explaining about the satellite, Pimprikar said that the ‘GlobalSat for DRR’ is a United Nation-driven initiative for sharing of technology and ideas to prepare and control the risk of natural disasters. The project was proposed at the third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction held at Sendai in Japan in March 2015. More than 150 nations at the UN session will adopt the GlobalSat in New York in September this year.

Disaster Risk Reduction — DRR is a systematic process of identifying, analyzing and reducing the associated with a disaster.UN agencies explain DRR as “The conceptual framework of elements considered with the possibilities to minimize vulnerabilities and disaster risks throughout a society, to avoid (prevention) or to limit (mitigation and preparedness) the adverse impacts of hazards, within the broad context of sustainable development.”

Since, such a big project of monitoring Earth and developing sensors and equipment to predict and mitigate disasters cannot be developed by one country so CANEUS initiated the project in partnership with UN agencies that includes UN Office for Outer Space Affairs, the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Bank. Moreover, CANEUS was founded in 1999 for the development of common platform such that several countries can share their technology and provide solutions for natural and man-made disaster.

According to Pimprikar, the renaming of satellite will motivate young legs in the country and will ignite interest in the field of science and space exploration that is essential for future development of space technology.

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Anisetti Thammayya

Kalam has developed and contributed many of his works as in not only rocketry but also in medical devices and imbibing our young Indians in knowledge and wisdom. He has gone into ANNALS OF HISTORY and will be remembered for generations to come.